Ask HN: Those making $1,000+/month on side projects – what did you make?
It can be a SaaS app, a mobile app, or any side project that is netting you recurring revenue.
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2016 where @xrxrxrx convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Participants share raw revenue figures, churn rates, and stack decisions that corporate PR never publishes.
Recurring answers reveal that distribution, not coding skill, is almost universally the rate-limiting step in developer businesses.
Practical recommendations on bookkeeping, payment gateways (Stripe vs Paddle), and freelance-to-product transitions.
Community Debate Themes:
Hundreds of active indie hackers contributed case studies, pricing heuristics, and pitfalls to avoid when moonlighting on side projects.
CATEGORY Ask HN Roundtables →
HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE 48 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 44 comments
Holy crap, I remember seeing these kinds of threads before and being amazed by people making good money from a side-project, I can't believe I'm now one of them!
My project is BugMuncher - https://www.bugmuncher.com ↗ - a website feedback tool I created back in 2011, and it's currently making $1,489 Monthly Recurring Revenue.
Strictly speaking it's not a side project anymore, as in Sept 2015 I fired all my freelance clients to focus on BugMuncher full time, but I've never taken funding, and I'm the only person working on it, so it still feels like a side project :)
If anyone is interested I've been writing a blog series about my mission to go from side project to profit, which starts here - https://blog.bugmuncher.com/2015/10/22/from-side-project-to-profitable-start-up-part-1.html ↗
http://betalyst.com/ ↗ - A football betting analysis/predictions website.
Offer the whole service for free. Revenue generated through advertising/sponsorship.
Looking to move into a premium model over the coming months to gain some MRR to allow me to develop it furthur..
Currently earns over £75,000 per year in advertising/sponsorship/affiliate revenue.
Work on it for about 2-3 hours a week.
https://retailwizard.co.uk ↗ & https://propertywizard.io ↗ (Same product, different marketing)
Automated social media assistant for small businesses in the UK - currently making £750 MRR. If you have any questions I'm happy to answer.
As in the previous thread I made http://www.watermark-image.com ↗ that makes 3000+ each month.
I am using the money to build http://timeblock.com ↗ that currently makes around $350 a month.
https://rebrickable.com ↗ - A LEGO database that shows you which sets you can build from your existing collection, also includes thousands of fan-submitted designs. The revenue fluctuates quite a lot though since I suck at that side of things.